Micro, Small, and Medium-sized enterprises (MSME) Survey (National)

Thematic Area: Macro, Trade, & Economic Growth

This project is a nationally representative survey on micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSME)—including women-led MSMEs. MSMEs are the engine of employment generation in Sri Lanka, especially among rural communities.

This survey will be designed to capture the ground situation of MSMEs in terms of access to finance and adaptively cover all important aspects impacting MSMEs’ economic participation in the country’s GDP such as measurable access to finance, usage of finance and interaction with financial institutions, non-financial assistances needed, social issues, gender-related issues, barriers that prevent usage of formal financial services, understanding of products and related terms and conditions, and existing informal delivery channels to understand potential opportunities for formalisation, among others.

The specific objectives of the survey include:

• identifying the existing financial and non-financial issues of MSMEs,
• identifying barriers for MSME ecosystem development, and
• proposing possible solutions to overcome the identified MSME-related issues.